Farm charged after fatal seed bag crush

WorkSafe has charged a Crowlands farming business after a local farmer was killed by a falling bulka bag.

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Price Agricultural Pty Ltd faces a single charge under section 26(1) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act for failing to ensure that a workplace under its management and control was safe and without risks to health.

It is alleged the company failed to eliminate or reduce the risk of serious injury or death to persons positioned underneath suspended bulka bags at the workplace.

In May 2022, a customer was using the company's telehandler to unload seed oats from a bulka bag into a grouper bin on his truck when the bag fell from the telehandler's tynes and fatally crushed him.

The matter is listed for a filing hearing in the Ballarat Magistrates' Court on 14 May 2024.